The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry

For more than two years, author and psychotherapist Gary Greenberg has embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM) - the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) compendium of mental illnesses and what Greenberg calls "the book of woe". Since its debut in 1952, the book has been frequently revised, and with each revision, the "official" view on which psychological problems constitute mental illness has changed.

Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government disability rolls because they have become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemic spreading most rapidly among our nations children. What is going on?

The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

Do antidepressants work, or are they no better than placebos? Like his colleagues, Irving Kirsch spent years referring patients to psychiatrists to have their depression treated with drugs. Eventually, however, he decided to investigate for himself just how effective the drugs actually were. With 15 years of research, Kirsch demonstrates that what everyone “knew” about antidepressants is wrong; what the medical community considered a cornerstone of psychiatric treatment is little more than a faulty consensus.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Best-selling writer and physician Gabor Maté looks at the epidemic of addictions in our society, tells us why we are so prone to them, and details what is needed to liberate ourselves. Starting with a close view of his drug-addicted patients, Dr. Maté looks at his own history of compulsive behavior, weaving a story of real people who struggle with addiction with the latest research on addiction and the brain. In a bold synthesis of clinical experience, insight and cutting edge scientific findings, Dr. Maté sheds light on this most puzzling of human frailties.

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world’s poorest countries. In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. The widespread use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s gave way in the 1950s to electroshock and a wave of new drugs.

James H. Walter says:"Essential Reading to Understand Modern Psychiatry"

The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

With uncommon humanity, candor, wit, and erudition, National Book Award winner Andrew Solomon takes the listener on a journey of incomparable range and resonance into the most pervasive of family secrets. The Noonday Demon examines depression in personal, cultural, and scientific terms. Drawing on his own struggles with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, doctors and scientists, policymakers and politicians, drug designers and philosophers, Solomon reveals the subtle complexities and sheer agony of the disease.

Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business

Eight years on from the biggest market meltdown since the Great Depression, the key lessons of the crisis of 2008 still remain unlearned - and our financial system is just as vulnerable as ever. Many of us know that our government failed to fix the banking system after the subprime mortgage crisis. But what few of us realize is how the misguided financial practices and philosophies that nearly toppled the global financial system have come to infiltrate all American businesses, putting us on a collision course with another cataclysmic meltdown.

Food: A Cultural Culinary History

Eating is an indispensable human activity. As a result, whether we realize it or not, the drive to obtain food has been a major catalyst across all of history, from prehistoric times to the present. Epicure Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin said it best: "Gastronomy governs the whole life of man."

Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety

Collectively, anxiety disorders are our most prevalent psychiatric problem, affecting about 40 million adults in the United States. In Anxious, Joseph LeDoux, whose NYU lab has been at the forefront of research efforts to understand and treat fear and anxiety, explains the range of these disorders, their origins, and discoveries that can restore sufferers to normalcy. LeDoux's groundbreaking premise is that we've been thinking about fear and anxiety in the wrong way.

White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America

In White Trash, Nancy Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early 19th century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ's Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

In The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring - specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neuro feedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies.

The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time

Depression can feel like a downward spiral, pulling you down into a vortex of sadness, fatigue, and apathy. Based in the latest research in neuroscience, this audiobook offers dozens of little things you can do every day to rewire your brain and create an upward spiral towardsa happier, healthier life.

The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About it

In this explosive expose of the drug companies and how they are ripping us off, Marcia Angell, M.D., a doctor, medical journalist, and a former editor of the respected New England Journal of Medicine, reveals the many ways in which the pharmaceutical industry has moved away from its original purpose of finding and producing useful new drugs.

The Medicalization of Everyday Life: Selected Essays

Defining "medicalization" as the perception of nonmedical conditions as medical problems and nondiseases as diseases, Thomas Szasz has devoted much of his career to exposing the dangers of "medicalizing" the conditions of some who simply refuse to conform to society's expectations. Szasz argues that modern psychiatry's tireless ambition to explain the human condition has led to the treatment of life's difficulties and oddities as clinical illnesses rather than as humanity revealed in its fullness.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity

What is autism: a lifelong disability or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is both of these things and more - and the future of our society depends on our understanding it. Wired reporter Steve Silberman unearths the secret history of autism, long suppressed by the same clinicians who became famous for discovering it, and finds surprising answers to the crucial question of why the number of diagnoses has soared in recent years.

In this completely revised and updated edition of the breakthrough best seller, you'll see scientific evidence that your anxiety, depression, anger, obsessiveness, or impulsiveness could be related to how specific structures in your brain work. You're not stuck with the brain you're born with. Renowned neuropsychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen includes cutting-edge research and the latest surprising, effective "brain prescriptions" that can help heal your brain and change your life.

Amazon Customer says:"Repetitive - starts out much like an infomercial."

Drugged: The Science and Culture Behind Psychotropic Drugs

In Drugged, Miller takes listeners on an eye-opening tour of psychotropic drugs, describing the various kinds, how they were discovered and developed, and how they have played multiple roles in virtually every culture. Drugged brims with surprises, revealing the fact that antidepressant drugs evolved from rocket fuel, highlighting the role of hallucinogens in the history of religion, and asking whether Prozac can help depressed cats. Entertaining and authoritative, Drugged is a truly fascinating book.

Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground

The word spread through the hacking underground like some unstoppable new virus: Someone - some brilliant, audacious crook - had just staged a hostile takeover of an online criminal network that siphoned billions of dollars from the U.S. economy. The FBI rushed to launch an ambitious undercover operation aimed at tracking down this new kingpin. Other agencies around the world deployed dozens of moles and double agents.

Publisher's Summary

Am I happy enough? This has been a pivotal question since America's inception. "Am I not happy enough because I am depressed?" is a more recent version. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured - not as an illness but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way.

In the 20 years since their introduction, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine chests. Upwards of 30 million Americans are taking them at an annual cost of more than $10 billion. Even more important, Greenberg argues, it has become common, if not mandatory, to think of our unhappiness as a disease that can---and should---be treated by medication. Manufacturing Depression tells the story of how we got to this peculiar point in our history.

Greenberg blends gonzo journalism, scientific literacy, and wry critical thinking into an engrossing, enlightening, and provocative work of art. Another reviewer called this book a rant but it is the opposite of a rant; the author never repeats himself but instead constantly reassesses his beliefs according to the evidence at hand, tweaking them to conform to his changing experiences. Instead of a rant, the book is a dialectic, a series of conflicts and resolutions, the backbone to a great story. In addition, Greenberg isn't afraid to explore the idea that treating depression with drugs could be yet another concession that democracy makes in the face of advanced capitalism. Greenberg is not a timid writer. He is also astonishingly smart about how to analyze the facts of his subject not only in the best terms that science promises (not mystifying jargon but razor-sharp logic and metacritical rumination) but also in terms of the (frankly fascinating) history of science. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and I an shocked that The Emperor of All Maladies received so much press whereas it was pure chance that I heard about this book. Yes, The Emperor of All Maladies is a very good book, but Manufacturing Depression takes more risks by drawing narrative steam from the engine of the romantic-self and the democratic society rather than the lachrymal-melodrama of the cancer ward.

It was nice to have my thoughts and suspicions confirmed about my own mental illness status confirmed by someone that was not invested in cashing in on it. The message I got from this book can be quantified in a single phrase which rings true in my life and certainly in most of the people I associate with, who also, consequently have mental illness diagnosis of some sort or other, this is the idea of 'pathologizing non-conformity'. We do this as a society, I think, because we have this need to fit in and want others to fit in too. It gave me much needed perspective on my own thoughts. Very nice read. I recommend to anyone taking drugs for any type of mental disorder, really make sure you need them, they are dangerous substances to be sure......and make sure you're not just caught up in the business of the health care industry.

The content is important but this book is overloaded with personal anecdotes and irrelevant trivia. In addition, the author is so negative about everything, that it's hard to know if he could say something worked if it did.

A fair and in depth look at the reality of depression. Greenberg takes his time and explores all sides of this narrative in a way that no other source ever has for me. This book is an honest invitation to question the story you've been told about mental health. Beautiful.

Where does Manufacturing Depression rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

the best listen so far

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

bouth

Any additional comments?

I was "treated" by ignorant family doctor with antidepressants when in fact I had Lyme disease.. recently diagnosed and apparently too late for a chance of getting cured fast and easy. I lost years of my life because incompetent doctors found it easier and more convenient to feed me antidepressants instead of sending me fore more diagnosis investigations.

This is arguably one of the deepest discourses on depression that has been articulated in modern times. If the aforesaid declaration is overstated or erroneous, then all the better. For it would mean that there is elsewhere a more masterful exposition on the meaning of melancholy that remains to be read or heard by me. But of this I am doubtful.

When one assumes the responsibility of a Psychotherapist for over a quarter century and earnestly endeavors to acquire the insight and information that will enable one to alleviate the anguish of one’s patients (and peers perhaps), one deserves to be taken seriously by anyone aspiring to become a competent Counselor or who similarly seeks to understand emotional suffering and its attenuation. When such a Psychotherapist is forthcoming with his failures—the defeatism, despondency, and even death of patients—he deserves to be taken seriously. When such a Psychotherapist assumes the role of an expert Investigative Journalist and devotes his exemplary intelligence, endurance and energy to exploring the ideational (and economic) underpinnings of Depression—a diagnosis that dominates our modern era along with the odious aliment of Anxiety—he deserves to be taken seriously. When such a Psychotherapist candidly confesses to have suffered dual debilitating bouts of Depression and courageously offers us an in depth description of its qualia, of “what it is like to be depressed”, he deserves to be taken seriously and indeed admired. Lastly, Dr. Greenberg deserves to be applauded for his willingness to honestly declare and confront the darkness inherent in human existence and for his disinclination to dismiss this dismal darkness as an essential, ineradicable element in the origin of melancholy, a darkness that no drug can dispel and no medical diagnosis can diminish or do proper justice to. Despite critical condemnation from some quarters, Dr. Greenberg is not unduly dark. Rather, the Universe is dark and indifferent to our existence.

Dr. Greenberg defensibly decries the duplicity of Daniel Amen for his misguided materialism and coarse commercialism combined with puerile pretentiousness. It is the materialistic reduction of melancholy to mere molecules meandering through the myriad modules of the brain that bespeaks the baseness of much of modern Medicine, Psychopharmacology and the burgeoning arena of Clinical Neuroscience. I share some of these sentiments. Presumptuously, I perceive that I am in a privileged position permitting me to proffer palliative solace to such skeptics as our sullen Psychotherapist who, while repudiating material (and medical) reductionism, feel unfit to furnish formidable philosophical explanations for the ostensible interdependency of matter and mind. Essentially, I espouse an alternative, obverse reductionism—Immaterial Monism. Since it would be impractical to expound on the elements of an intricate metaphysical model of mine in the context of this book review, I shall only elaborate the essential idea and refer interested individuals to the text, “Mind, Matter, Mathematics, and Mortality (M4)” (Amen-Ra, 2007). M4 maintains that matter, molecules and all things “physical” in character are constituted by quantum entities that are infinitesimal and, perforce, immaterial. Importantly, it argues from fundamental findings of modern physics that such infinitesimal, immaterial entities exhibit an irreducible element of awareness at their core. Clearly, the convergence and concatenation of such ‘pseudo-sentient’ (or ‘Proto-Percipient) particles can produce what we properly consider “consciousness” in the course of time and under the orderly “instruction” of Evolution over eons. Empirical evidence for this admittedly astounding idea is amassed in my monograph and I welcome all intelligent, informed critique of its content. The insinuation of this Author’s ideas into the present analysis is appropriate (in my estimation) insofar as the author of “Manufacturing Depression” alleges the absence of valid explanations for the mysterious interplay of “matter” and “mind” and understandably excoriates individuals who presume to prescribe physico-chemical treatments for the correction of mental maladies, melancholic and otherwise. But if, fundamentally, there be no such physico-chemical entities, if the medicinal molecules that manifestly modulate our mood and mental operations are as immaterial as the mind (for Dr. Greenberg openly acknowledges that drugs alter emotional states and perceptive propensities), then there is no inherent metaphysical mystery—there is merely a deficiency of detail and depth of understanding on our part presently. [Or perhaps perpetually, if Dr. Colin McGinn be believed. See the latter’s “Mysterious Flame” for the Philosopher’s formulation of Mysterianism.] Such scientific ignorance would be unfortunate, but not epistemologically apocalyptic or overwhelming. Confessedly, this conception is edifying to my mind and I wish simply to share it with other serious-minded individuals such as the sagacious Psychotherapist, Dr. Gary Greenberg, and his admirers. I am one of them.